Halloween Horror Nights - Orlando

The first thing I ever heard whilst starting up as a scare actor was the following:“what gives the soul of the scare maze is the heart the scare actor puts into it” for those who wish to know who said that, that was David Clevenger, of Universal Studios. Ask anyone who has ever been to Universal studios what is Halloween Horror Nights, and you’ll most likely get a response along the lines of “The scariest event ever!”. We took the challenge up and decided to brave the 8 mazes on offer, as well as the three additional scare zones with roaming actors. Unfortunately, we left a little disappointed. The soul is slowly fading. This years event had been taken over by mazes based from current popular television shows and movies, with additional creations by the Universal Team, in fact, of 8 mazes, 5 had been focused on television/movie-based scares. This to us felt a little lacking in originality. But credit where credit is due, the set and costume were astounding. The level of detail that had been put into each zone was impressive, made only stronger by the presence of the actors, within reason. Before we talk about the mazes, we have to share certain aspects of the event that were common throughout the time spent: Actor re-set: when the actor has you in his sights, he scares you, but rather than continue the scare behind you, or focus on the next three people behind you, he would break character and reset behind his post, waiting for the next 14 people (or time limit of 8 seconds, this was usually the often selected choice). We can understand that if a certain scare is instructed, a re-set may be required, what broke the mood however, is when you see the actor, not only breaking character by heading back to his spot, but FOLDING his arms in the process. We asked ourselves if this actor does indeed want to do the job for the art itself, or simply to collect a paycheque at the end of the night? Guides within the maze: ALL of the mazes at this event are linear, with clear, reasonable lighting in each section showing the direct route in which to take, we felt it unnecessary to have a member of staff standing in a brightly lit corner of the room, holding onto a pen light, ushering guests to the left, when clearly left is the only option to go. Had the staff been in relevant costume to the maze, this may have swayed the opinion that they could serve a purpose, but as they were in all black with a bright white name badge on, this unfortunately destroyed the mood the actors and atmosphere had tried so hard to set, and once again, with a look on their faces that screamed “I AM BORED, I DO NOT WANT TO BE HERE” sadly, one of the biggest tension breakers of the night. Our first maze of the evening was a Universal original, Roanoke. The theme is based around a colonial settlement that resorted to tribal cannibalism when other sources of food were gone. From the word go, we are immersed into the setting of a desolate village which had gone awry, but we found the scares to be very slow in build and predictable to finish. Actors had their performance that gave the guest the chance to look at the detail. Impressive the detail was, but we found ourselves to be looking for too long, by which time, the scare that should have happened didn’t, leaving us with the impression that we were here to observe the quality of the set, rather than focus on the fear itself. While we were impressed with the make up of the actors, the set itself appeared to be the conventional “ghost village”, something that has often been used before at previous attractions. Overall, we found this maze to be the least memorable; even after visiting the attraction a second time as the night grew darker. Our next attack was Dollhouse of the Damned, one of the two favourite mazes of the evening. When entering a maze, it becomes fairly quick to notice the props within the maze and you start to sense what is real and what isn’t. With Dollhouse, they used this to their advantage by surrounding the rooms, even some of the actors with the dolls, a particular favourite being a frail looking gentleman being a part of the wall, only to spring out on us seconds before leaving his sight, a masterful use of timing on his part. Having said this, it would have been interesting to see how far the actor could come out from the wall and how close could he have got to the guests. Visual aspects that worked to the mazes favour included a grown man in a to scale cot, with a giant baby face headpiece under a dark blue light, trying to grab at the guests, as well as a “doll” that had been cut in half, seeing all the details of the frayed string underneath the upper half, only to have her reach out screaming at us.

Our first ‘tribute’ maze of the night was based on the original movie, Halloween. Here, we are thrown into the set of the origins of Michael Myers and how he came to be the knife-wielding maniac that we all came to know and love. Regrettably, this maze didn’t show the chaos that it truly deserved. Clearly, we had missed all the scares that the guests in front and behind us seemed to get, which had been a huge disappointment, being fans of the 1978 classic movie. The actor re-sets in this maze were much more prominent here, as each scare was synced with a sound that triggered with the actors movements, so having to re-set here was essential, but had the actor stayed in character as they re-set, we probably would have been more forgiving. We end the maze with Myers being gunned down by police sheriff Brackett, a re-enacted scene, rather than a target scare. Overall, we felt the actors relied too much on the set to deliver the fright rather than feeding off of that and assaulting the senses with the scare, if a sound or lighting system had failed, they would have had to rely on their scare acting capabilities. Hugely disappointing climax. Dracula Untold: Reign of blood was next on the hit list. While some of the props appeared to look quite cheap and tacky looking, some were given the desired effect when clouded in within the smoke effects used graciously throughout this maze. The scares in here had been wonderfully choreographed to make smoke a factor of the tension, which resulted at one point, our party being certain that there was only one actor in the room as opposed to three.The scare of the night belonged to a Turk vampire who, rather than scare and re-set as he was supposed to, enjoyed scaring a guest so much (who couldn’t move with fear), he remained in close eye contact to her, only to jump out at her again 8 seconds later, proof this actor does his job for the love of it. Our only downfall to this maze was that once again, we were given the opportunity to get up close with the actors and their make up, which from a distance is great, but if given the chance to get close, it needed to be more detailed, in particular, the fangs looked more like cheap store bought veneers instead of professional effects make up that we had come to expect of Universal. As I write this review, the U.S release date of the movie Dracula: Untold is tomorrow, so the storytelling of this maze had to be crucial in order to sell the movie. This was clever marketing done right. Giggles and Gore Inc, became the second of the top two mazes. Hilarious and punchy with its scares. It applied the actor's ability to deliver intimidating scares with high energy and bright, down trodden neon lighting, as well as guests curiosity, resulting in them scaring themselves, when a button says “do NOT push” and it’s pushed, don’t expect fluffiness and smiles back. The actors freedom of movement provided a much needed sense of fear that we craved since arriving, while not all the actors chose to move, those that did, did so with purpose and intensity. If you were not a fan of clowns, this would solidify your reasoning for not entering…ever. Alien Versus Predator proved to be a series of mixed emotions. On the one hand, the set and lighting was truly immersive, you got the feeling you weren’t on earth anymore, H.R Geiger would have been impressed to see the aliens used the way they were, however, they were masked over a little too much by the smoke, and we felt that perhaps less was required. Once again, staffing shepherds meant that due to one of them standing next to one of the actors dressed as the predator, meant that actor could only stand there and let the shepherd guide guests on. Again, we could be forgiving of this, had the predator not been standing with his arms folded, it just seemed to be that the actor was beyond caring and clearly wanted to go home (perhaps this was the reason why the shepherd stood where he was?)We were lead to exit through a crawl space under a cloud of smoke. This seemed to prove anti-climatic however, as we were greeted with the outside world after we emerged, dusting our knees down. Sadly underwhelming. From Dusk til Dawn proved to be the superior of the vampire related mazes this evening. As well as a linear storyline, this maze placed the scares in the right locations, making sure the guest was not only scared, but scared in the direction they needed to go, which once again begs the question why were staff members required to herd people to the next location.The set and costume kept relevant to not only the 1996 movie, but also to the current TV show, which certainly held triumphant as you are not only whisked off to the seedy strip club, but also simultaneously taken to ancient temples with what we can only describe as “legendary” costume and make up. It has certainly given us the encouragement we wanted to start watching the TV show. You can tell the final maze on offer, “The Walking Dead: End of the Line” had the most budget poured into it. Based around the fourth series of the AMC series, Universal took pride in naming this “the largest maze Universal has built to date” and it delivered for the most part. Set, costume, even smells were how you would imagine them to be in this maze. One section proved to be unsettling, as we were greeted by a horde of walkers under a series of strobe lighting, this was amusingly broken in complete contrast, by being greeted by terminus Mary and a grilled steak. That being said, those who had the space to roam around, chose not to, but instead opted to re-set their scare, and considering the re-set happened right in front of us, was hugely disappointing, especially when you can see the actor fold their arms yet again as they head back into position. The scare zones consisted of the Purge: Anarchy - the largest of the four, Bayou of Blood, MASKerade: Unstitched and FACE OFF: In The Flesh and had the most dedicated set of street team actors we have seen to date. The teams were all highly energised, and ready to face head on with guests, running full pelt with chainsaws and the usual weaponry you’d expect to see. Sets and costume were beautifully crafted to give you the feel of each zone, and the actors themselves truly owned the space, With these actors, since they had minimal set, you can tell straight away they had to rely on each other to set up for the perfect scare, which generally was a success. Overall, this year has been a worrying let down. While the actors had done the best they could with what they had (give or take certain mazes) the notion of mazes based around television shows and movies in ratio to original creations came across as lazy. The lack of an Icon since 2011 has certainly shown that the TV spots, even interactive teasers within the website are showing signs of slowing down creatively, and with it’s twenty fifth anniversary next year, we feel the return of an icon could increase Universals already large fan base. Let’s hope the soul returns next year.

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You Review

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Extremely crowded. Only able to go through 3 out of 8 houses due to 2 hr waiting times. Not worth the money, especially for families with multiple passes. Lines for rides were just as long so we left earlier than anticipated:-( . People c were still entering the park at 9 pmi which would only get them through 1 attraction I'd there were lucky.

Not a review more of a tip.

Having been a regular to HHN since 2008 one of the best things we found was that you can sign up for a VIP (called RIP on the site) tour which is only about 20 bucks more than fast pass, but the difference is that you get taken round the event by a guide in a small group (10-12) and go straight to the front of the queue for every house, you also get priority access to the shows (bill and ted etc.) and if you do all the houses before the event closes you then get fastpass for the rest of the night.

If there are a lot of you then you can arrange a private tour where they will tailor it for whatever you want, so you can go straight to the front of houses as many times as you like until the event closes.

The behind the screams tour which is done during the day is also good as you get to see the houses during the day, take pictures and get a lot more info on the back story for the event.

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